Save ‘Retired’ Racehorses From a Painful Death in Slaughterhouses

Coming Home is one of 20,000 thoroughbreds discarded by the horse racing industry every single year. The granddaughter of Kentucky Derby winner Unbridled and cousin of Eight Belles, this 6-year-old thoroughbred was sold to a meat buyer at auction when she was "retired" from racing. PETA rescued her just hours before slaughter. But 10,000 other thoroughbreds won't escape. They will be sent to a terrifying and painful death in slaughterhouses in Canada or Mexico.

Yet the horse-racing industry continues to breed 30,000 new foals every year. Owners pay exorbitant stud fees and millions of dollars for promising racers but turn their backs when their racehorses aren't winners.

In April 2011, PETA undercover investigators captured video footage inside the breeding barns at Darley America in Kentucky, one of the world's most expensive thoroughbred breeding facilities. We documented a factory assembly-line regimen in which stallions "cover" more than a hundred mares each in a breeding season.

Please help us end this deadly cycle. PETA has asked the Jockey Club to implement the Thoroughbred 360 Lifecycle Fund. This plan would require owners and breeders to pay a $360 fee for new foal registrations, ownership transfers, and stallion or broodmare registrations and would generate more than $20 million every year toward the retirement of racehorses.

Please sign the petition to the Jockey Club in support of a mandatory retirement fund for former racers.

Letter to

The Jockey Club

I urge the Jockey Club to impose PETA's proposed Thoroughbred 360 Lifecycle Fund fee on owners and breeders to help ensure the safety and welfare of horses when their years on the track are over.